Armed Forces Retirement Home, Gulfport, Miss.

Cost: $193 million

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina ruined the 11-story Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss., and forced nearly 400 veterans to flee.

Now, the veterans can look forward to coming home. The old building was imploded in 2007 and construction began on a 635,000-sq-ft, 10-floor building in January 2008, says Gary Mote, a spokesman for the U.S. General Services Administration.

“Through several supplemental appropriations, Congress has made available approximately $240 million and designated GSA as the lead agency for planning, design and construction of a replacement facility for Gulfport,” he says.

The retirement home will have rooms for 582 residents. Each room will have a balcony view of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The building also will have a wellness center, swimming pool, dining facility and covered parking.

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The concrete-frame building will have poured-in-place concrete post tension decks, Mote says. The walls will be 12 in precast concrete with steel stud backer.

The exterior of the building is precast concrete and glass, and the roof will be modified bitumen. The building is scheduled for completion in July 2010.

Key Players

Renaissance 200,Ridgeland, Miss.

Cost: $63 million

The Renaissance 200 is a 13-floor, 325,000-sq-ft office tower with a seven-level parking garage.

The concrete-frame building in Ridgeland, Miss., will have a glass and granite exterior, says Mark Cameron, project manager for Hoar Construction LLC. The parking deck, which will hold about 1,200 vehicles, is structural precast concrete.

Cameron says the soil conditions were a challenge on the project.

“There was a lot of de-mucking that was required,” he says. “We just worked through the weather and the dewatering.”

The construction crew drilled auger cast piles 80 ft into the ground and the building sits on a structural slab on grade.

The ground floor has a ceiling height of 24.5 ft and each level is 13 ft high, although the top floor has a ceiling to floor height of 16 ft.

Each floor is made of a 5-in-thick layer of concrete.

The project is a component of the larger Colony Park development, which features a lifestyle center with more than 60 stores and at least five full-service restaurants.

“The architectural style for Renaissance at Colony Park has been derived from European and Mediterranean influences, utilizing a mix of classical features, such as arched openings, clay tile roofs, and stone and stucco facades,” Renaissance at Colony Park says in a news release.

The office building is seeking LEED Silver Certification.

Key Players

The Promenade, D’Iberville, Miss.

Cost: $40 million

Hurricane Katrina wiped out several retail stores in D’Iberville, Miss., in 2005.

CBL & Associates Properties hopes to bring retail back with The Promenade.

“We believe The Promenade will serve to revitalize the area and create a much-needed retail hub and service district for the D’Iberville community,” Stephen Lebovitz, president of CBL, says in a news release.

The project, which has a construction cost of approximately $40 million and a total cost of $90 million, also benefited from tax exempt bond funding through the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act, which was designed to prompt development in areas hit by the hurricane.

The shopping center will have 680,000 sq ft of retail space with 80,000 sq ft for specialty shops and restaurants, says Katie Reinsmidt, a spokeswoman for CBL.

“It’s a traditional big box center,” she says. “It’s not really a lifestyle center or anything like that.”

A new four-lane road also is being constructed in the middle of the 110-acre site, says Clint Dean, director of construction for EMJ Corp.

The buildings are mostly steel frame with concrete tilt-up walls, Reinsmidt says. The buildings will sit on 4-in-thick concrete slabs. The stores will have glass curtain wall entries.

Dean said one of the challenges of the project was working in the wet conditions.

“That whole land down there is essentially a swamp,” he says. The dirt was treated with soil cement stabilization.

The shopping center is projected to create more than 1,000 jobs and generate nearly $200 million in annual retail sales.

Key Players

River Oaks Hospital, Flowood, Miss.

Cost: $37 million

The $37 million, 180,000-sq-ft addition will add 81 beds to River Oaks Hospital in Flowood, Miss.

The four-story steel structure also will include an OB/GYN unit, doctor’s lounge, an NICU and operating rooms, says Barry Collier, senior project manager for M.J. Harris Inc. In addition, a courtyard for a garden will be on the roof.

The building sits on an 8-in-thick concrete slab. The decks are 5-in lightweight concrete on metal decking, Collier says. The exterior skin is stucco. The first floor features covered parking for doctors and some shell space.

The tower is pie shaped and fits between two buildings that are at a 120-degree angle.

On the second floor, a 60-ft connection corridor ties into the existing building. The third floor also has a connection corridor.

The tricky part was working in the tight space at the hospital, Collier says.

“We’ve got a major highway 5 ft from one side of the project and we’ve got their main access road on the back side of us that we had to take over for a little while,” he says.

Also the operating rooms are next to the construction site.

“So if the doctors are doing some serious surgery there, we’d have to shut down,” he says. He says the construction crew had to spend a lot of nights and weekends on the project.

The addition is expected to be completed in August.

Key Players

University of Mississippi Residential College, Oxford, Miss.

Cost: $30 million

This Residential College project at the University of Mississippi at Oxford needed to be finished by the start of the 2009 fall semester.

“It’s a 17-month project,” says Casey Rogers project manager for Harrell Contracting Group of Jackson, Miss. “It was a six-day schedule and we worked 24-hours a day for two months with two crews.”

The extra work of the 200 construction workers at peak times paid off. The $30 million project is expected to be finished on time, he says.

The Residential College houses freshmen to seniors who will live there throughout their stay at the university.

The five-floor, 150,000-sq-ft building will have classrooms, cafeterias and a library, Rogers says. It also features a teaching kitchen, a music practice room and theater facilities.

The building will house 466 students from all majors. Students must maintain a 2.5 grade point average to remain in the Residential College.

The college was modeled after those at British universities in Oxford and Cambridge.

“Both blacks and whites, musicians and athletes, residents and nonresidents, as well as students pursuing various academic studies, all will reside, study and socialize in harmony,” the university says in a news release.

Key Players